Irina Sheynfeld grew up in Odesa, Ukraine where she studied puppet making, painting, and sculpture at Odesa Theater Collage. Just before the Soviet Union collapsed she moved to NYC with her family and continued her studies at Parsons School of Design. Sheynfeld holds MA in Modern and Contemporary art and Market from Christie’s Education, she also earned MFA from School of Visual Arts.
In her practice, Sheynfeld uses a wide range of media: pastel, watercolor, oil, acrylic, printmaking, and computer-generated mixed media collages. Her major sources of inspiration are artists such as Yayoi Kusama, Peter Doig, Hernan Bas, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Cecily Brown.
Sheynfeld shows her work nationally and abroad. She is a recipient of the COJECO’s Blueprint Fellowship and Grant, and she was also selected four times to be an NYC Piano Artist for the Sing for Hope Pianos – a project by NYC that puts pianos in public places for everyone to enjoy and then donates them to schools, – in 2017, 2018, and 2021, 2022.
She is a member of Ceres Gallery in NYC where she regularly exhibits her work. Sheynfeld is one of the founders of Odesa Peace Fund, a charity that provides funds and medical supplies to Ukraine.
